Kerry pic revisited

December 29, 2006

I don’t want to belabor the point, but the TPM Muckraker report on the “lonely Kerry” photo that I linked to yesterday needs some follow-up.

Justin Rood’s original report noted concerns about the picture that raised questions about its authenticity. Last night, Rood spoke with CPT Benjamin G. Runkle, former Bush speechwriter and staff assistant to Defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, who originally published the picture and vouched for its authenticity.

The photo is authentic, he said. “Although I did not personally take the pictures, I saw the person who did immediately after they took them and asked for a copy.” […]

To cement the photo’s authenticity, Runkle attached a photo taken in the same hall with someone holding a copy of the most recent edition of the Stars and Stripes military newspaper.

Moreover, as several helpful emailers noted, Michelle Malkin did some digging and found fairly compelling evidence that the photo in question was, in fact, taken during Kerry’s visit to Iraq earlier this month. Barring any additional revelations, it would appear that the mystery is solved.

There is, however, the broader point to consider here.

The original “lonely Kerry” picture was supposed to be evidence of U.S. troops shunning the senator. He’d been ostracized, the story went, in retaliation for his “botched joke.” If the troops respected Kerry, he wouldn’t have been sitting by himself at the breakfast shown in the photo.

kerry

With the new evidence in mind, we apparently can accept the photo as legitimate, but the narrative still seems unreliable. Malkin herself posted a picture of Kerry sitting at a mess-hall table, talking with troops, who were sitting on either side of him. Kerry wasn’t being intentionally isolated as some kind of symbolic slight; he appears to be engaged in conversation.

So, how then do we explain the original photo of Kerry with some empty chairs around him? I haven’t the foggiest idea. Maybe he got to the table early and the troops filled in afterwards. Maybe some troops had to leave shortly before the picture was taken. Without any real context, it’s very hard to say with any certainty.

But ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. This flap was about alleged proof that Kerry’s flubbed joke from November caused lingering resentment between the senator and the men and women in uniform. Given the picture Malkin found of Kerry surrounded by troops, that story appears to be untrue.

Update: Before we leave the subject, Frank Lowenstein, Kerry’s foreign policy staffer who was with Kerry in Iraq, has issued a statement that sheds quite a bit of light on the subject — and further undermines the right-wing narrative about the troops rejecting Kerry. Between this statement, the photos Malkin published, and the additional research from Justin Rood, it seems overwhelmingly clear that the conservative story was completely wrong.

An apology, or at least a correction, from some of the conservatives who mocked Kerry incorrectly seems entirely appropriate.

Also note that the picture suspiciously leaves out everything to the right (Kerry’s left). We see the back of one person sitting across from the senator, and Kerry’s head seems to be turned further to his left, as if he’s speaking to someone else at the table. It seems quite likely that there were other people at the table, but with four empty chairs at the end of the table, to Kerry’s right.

  • So, how then do we explain the original photo of Kerry with some empty chairs around him? I haven’t the foggiest idea.

    Uh, conservatives call ambiguous shit something it’s not all the time so the thing to do about it is just call it what it is as the very first words out of our mouths after we see it.

  • The conservative says, “This looks like. . .”

    You say, (preferably overbearing, projected voice, making eye-contact w/ those around you, and interrupting the conservative): “No it’s not. You conservatives are calling ambiguous shit something it’s not all the time. This is just. . . Yes, you conservatives are calling ambiguous things something they’re not all the time, and you do it just. . .”

  • The photo was photoshopped. The picture is 300×225 pixels. That is not a possible resolution for the camera it was taken with, which has 640×480 as its smallest resolution. One of the properties of the picture is that the Creating Application is Photoshop. So, the question is how much was done to the picture in Photoshop.

  • So, how then do we explain the original photo of Kerry with some empty chairs around him?

    How about ”doctored photo.”

    How do we explain conservative logic? Nonsense.

    What do we call anyone that tries to bargain in good faith with a conservative? Damn fool.

  • Red table cloth, plasticwear, plastic cups, plates and bowls.

    Boy, do we treat our soldiers well or what?

    Yes, the photo was cropped. Obviously.

    Yes, Republican’ts are morons. This is news?

  • Is this really worth the three minutes it is taking to read and comment on? Or am I just wasting my time like the rest of you?

  • There’s a bowl right next to Kerry, on his left. There’s another bowl next to that, with a set of hands; but those hands are in the wrong position to belong to the strip of camo uniform we can see next to Kerry. It looks like there’s a person there, but he’s leaning back; to talk to somebody else, or to give the photographer a shot at Kerry.

  • Why are we wasting our time trying to interpret a picture? The more general question is why do we keep falling for the traps the lackeys of the Bush Crime Family set for us. The rest of table isn’t even in the photograph, no one who was there seems to be to offer conclusive proof of anything, and who the hell cares? Maybe Kerry had just been joking with several soldiers and suddenly let a fart which drove them away. Who knows? Who cares?

  • If the soldiers are shunning Kerry, it’s probably because they’re disappointed that he didn’t bring them a plastic turkey.

  • Looking at the various parts of this idiotic “controversy,” here’s my interpretations:

    • The “lonely” photo is probably legit (too many similarities to other images of the recent event)

    • It’s unlikely there’s been any serious Photoshop “doctoring,” beyond reducing the size of the initial image (I do actual image editing in my work, and I can tell you it’s not easy to do it seamlessly, and in any case this whole bruhaha is too stupid for a professional Photoshop Jock to have bothered with it).

    • The wingnut “Kerry ostracized” interpretations are blindingly stupid, i.e. it’s just another normal bit of righty effluent.

    • The fact that wingnuttia has had such a bee in their bonnets about this tells us more than the photo does. They can’t let any bit of their silly crap go, and are still, years later, trying to tar Kerry. My guess is if Shrub were polling above 50% and the war going as swimmingly as they used to claim it was, they would not be bothering to try smearing Kerry.

  • The photo was photoshopped. The picture is 300×225 pixels. That is not a possible resolution for the camera it was taken with, which has 640×480 as its smallest resolution. — Dennis

    300/640 = 0.46875
    225/480 = 0.46875

    It was probably resized, not shopped.

    Crap this stupid just shows how desperate they are. It seems that Kerry is the new Clinton, they have to attack every possible thing about him.

  • “Soldiers aren’t a very unbiased, well-informed demographic.” – Dale

    Sadly neither are they noted for voting in their own self-interest.

  • Looking at the two photos of Kerry and the troops posted on the Malkin website. I can’t help but wonder why, if they were taken at the same time and place. There appears to be a vase and flowers in front of Kerry in one pic and missing in the second photo.

  • I’m not a Kerry fan, but I think this pic is being misrepresented based on what I’m seeing in it. It may LOOK like he is seated among empty seats, but I see evidence of two troops seated across from him and one to his left. I see two plates across from him and a bowl or dessert dish to his left. Furthermore, I see what looks like to me as different colored clothing against his blue shirt but behind and to his left, almost as if someone is sitting back to make way for someone taking a photo. While I guess it is possible that the troops eating from those dishes might have simply gotten up from their seats and left their dirty dishes, I doubt that would have happened in a military environment like a mess hall or tent. My guess is that either the photographer was very skilled in creating or finding the right shot to create an untrue story or the shot was taken innocently but is being misinterpreted. Oh yeah, and according to Runkle, there were other photos too. Where are they? I suspect that the WHOLE set would tell a different story.

  • Photographs are single moments in time. If I photograph a surgeon at work, I might get a shot where he blinks. One should not conclude that this particular physician operates with his eyes closed.

  • So Frank Lowenstein cleared it up. The picture was taken during a meeting Kerry had with a few people (members of the press, etc), either after or before the meal. Probably after. The whole thing was taken out of context and misrepresented.
    Way to go, Michelle Malkin! Just keep up with the lies and inuendos. It lets the rest of the world know how desperate you wingnuts really are!

  • I have it from a good source that there were actually hundreds of service people there who were photo-shopped out of the picture, as well as their “Kerry in 08” banner. My friends at Loosebrains told me the same type of manipulation was used on 9/11. I find this whole non-story to be absolutely hillaryious!

  • If you go to the Blog “Crooks & Liars” you will find that the “lonely Kerry” photo was actually taken NOT in Iraq but at an event here in the US – several months before the “stupid joke” incident.

    The Union Jack and the Portuguese flag in the background are huge clues – and this explains the “missing” vase of flowers. Lots of people have red paper table cloths, and plastic/paper dinnerware is ubiquitous at these kinds of events. So, since Kerry often wears denim shirts, and is often with large groups of people at places, and eats at a lot of them, it would be not a huge chore to find a picture (particularly one like this where there aren’t any other identifiable faces in it but Kerry’s), and then claim it is something else.

    I havve a new rule (courtesy of Jack Clark at http://www.rationalradical.com) – anything that comes out of a right-wing-nut’s mouth is the absolute opposite of the truth. If you listen with this mindset then you can easily figure out what is going on.

    Since the right-wing-nuts say Kerry was ostracized – then the opposite is the truth. The troops were happy to see him.

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